Law: Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1958

Section: 98

(On appeal from the judgment and order of the High Court of West Pakistan, Lahore, dated the 17th December 1958, in L. P. A. No. 268 of 1968). Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act (XXVIII of 1958), Sched., Part I and Constitution of Pakistan (1962), Art. 98-Writ petition against order of Settlement Commissioner-High Court setting aside order as disputed question of fact Whether High Court justified and competent to do so Special Leave to Appeal granted by Supreme Court to consider question. Date of hearing : 16th December 1969. ORDER WAHIDUDDIN AHMAD, J.-The property in dispute is bungalow on plot No. 8-F, Gulberg. The said plot is situated on part of land contained in Khasra Nos. 834 and 840 in the Revenue Estate of village Ichhra, District Lahore. In 1955, the said property was purchased by deceased Shamsuddin Ahmad, predecessor-in-interest of respondents Nos. 1 to 4, from the Lahore Improvement Trust, for the sum of Rs. 36,500. The bungalow in question was requisitioned by the Provincial Government in September 1959 and allotted to the peti tioner. The petitioner filed an N. C. H. Form for the transfer of the said bungalow and on the 19th May 1960, the Deputy Settlement Commissioner, transferred it to him. Deceased Shamsuddin Ahmad challenged this order before the Settlement Commissioner on the ground that he had already purchased it from the Lahore Improvement Trust, the property in dispute was non-evacuee property and the subsequent transfer was illegal. The matter was considered by the Settlement Authorities and ultimately Syed Ijaz Hussain Shah, the then Settlement Commissioner, in revision, held that the property in dispute has not been acquired by the Improvement Trust and it had disposed of a property which did not vest in it. He, therefore, restored the disputed property in favour of the petitioner by his order dated the 31st May, 1963. The respondents Nos. 1 to 4 challenged this order is Writ Petition No. 2054 of 1964. A learned Single Judge of the High Court by order dated the 18th September 1968, set aside the order of the Settlement Commissioner on the ground that it was based on assumption of facts which do not exist an the…